Hush (Black Lotus #3) (27 page)

He says this with a doting smile, which makes me smile as well.

He turns back to Declan and tells him, “I used to have a short beard, almost the same length as yours, and one thing she would always do was rub her tiny hands over it. She’d giggle and tell me she liked the way it felt as it crackled against her palms.”

I look over to Declan when my dad says this because I do the exact same thing to Declan’s beard every single day. And I do it because it’s always reminded me of my dad, and it simply makes me feel good. Declan gazes into my eyes and gives me a hint of a smile when he puts those two puzzle pieces together.

“But as girly as she was, she still wanted to be my right-hand man,” he continues with a chuckle. “I can remember when we moved into the Northbrook house . . .”

“We didn’t always live there?”

“No. After everything with your mom, I decided it would be best that you and I had a fresh start together. I bought that house for us.”

“I never knew that,” I murmur.

“You were only three years old at the time, but you insisted on having a little tool belt of your own so you could help me hang the window treatments and artwork on the walls. I wound up tracking one down at a nearby toy store, and you wore it proudly as you followed me around the house.”

I laugh when he tells me this, saying, “I don’t remember that.”

“Well, you were so young, but, yeah, you’d pull out your plastic hammer and tap it against the wall every time I would hammer in a nail.” He stops for a moment and smiles at me before continuing, “There was one time when I had a couple buddies of mine over, Danny and Garrett. Do you remember them?”

I do my best to think back and vaguely recall, “You mean Uncle Danny?”

“You
do
remember,” he says happily. “Danny was a good friend of mine and he insisted that since you didn’t have any aunts or uncles, that you should call him Uncle Danny.”

“I don’t remember his face or anything, but I do remember an Uncle Danny,” I tell him.

He turns to Declan and explains, “Danny and I had known each other since our twenties, and when it was just Elizabeth and me, he’d started to come around more often to spend time with her. But anyway,” he says, shifting his attention back to the story. “I was in the attic, laying insulation because it was unfinished, and I wanted to turn it into a storage space. You were downstairs playing with Uncle Danny, and I had stumbled and my foot slipped off the rafter I was standing on and my one leg fell right through the floor.” He starts laughing. “I hollered down to you two, and instead of Danny coming to help me, he took you out to the garage where my leg was hanging through the ceiling. He picked you up so you could reach me and encouraged you to take my shoe off and tickle my foot.”

Declan and I join in my father’s laughter as he tells this story I have no memory of.

“The more I laughed, the more you tickled, and the more I started to slip through. But I could hear you giggling, and you were having the time of your life.”

“Well, it looks like your leg survived that ordeal,” I tease.

“It did,” he says and then faces Declan. “But if you really want to know what she was like as a child, she was perfect. She had the softest heart and always wanted to please people. If I told her to do something, she always did it and never fought me. She was kind and she was sensitive,” he says and then looks at me, finishing, “and she was my every dream come true.”

He goes on to tell a couple more funny stories, and when we finish our lunch and clean up, he turns to me and asks, “You feel like getting out of here?”

“I thought you couldn’t . . .”

“Forget what I said. You want to go for a walk?”

“Um . . . yeah. That sounds great, Dad.”

“It’s a little cold outside, but why don’t I take you over to Owen Beach?”

With a smile, I respond, “Okay. Let me go change my clothes, and I’ll be ready.” I give Declan a smile when I walk past him and into the bedroom. Closing the door, I rush into the closet like a kid about to go to her favorite candy store. I slip off my dress pants and pull on a pair of jeans before grabbing a hooded raincoat. I dig through Declan’s clothes, looking for his jacket, and when I find it, I make a quick stop in front of the mirror to wrap my hair up in a bun on top of my head.

As I walk out of the bedroom, I notice the two of them standing off by the door talking in hushed tones with one another.

“What are you two talking about?” I announce as I approach, and when Declan turns to me, I hold his coat out and wait for his answer.

“You, of course.”

I narrow my eyes at him in mock annoyance and then laugh when he kisses me.

“I don’t have a whole lot of time before I have to leave, so why don’t we take two cars for time’s sake, and I’ll just leave from the beach?”

“Not a problem, Steve. We’ll just follow you there.”

The drive is a short one, and pretty soon, we’re driving among fresh blooming buds of spring. The sky may be dank and gray, but the pink cherry blossoms make the gloom beautiful. I press my hand on to the window, absorbing its bitter chill as Declan pulls into a parking spot that looks over the desolate beach.

My dad opens his door next to our car, and when he opens my door and takes my hand, Declan says, “I’ll wait here.”

I look over my shoulder. “You sure?”

“I need to make a few calls,” he says. “Go share a walk with your dad.”

Hand in hand we walk over the mounds of driftwood on the beach and down to the water’s edge. The wind gusts, creating a mist of sea spray that mingles with the cloud’s sprinkles that fall from the sky. I reach back with my free hand and pop the hood of my raincoat over my head as we stroll leisurely across the dense, water-puddled sand.

“Is this where you came when you left prison or have you lived other places?”

“Only here. I love it. The mountains, the water, the gray. I love the cold.”

“I do too. Winter has always been my favorite for some reason. Maybe it’s because it hides the truth of Earth’s death under a blanket of false purity.”

“False purity?”

“The white fluffy snow seems so innocent, but in actuality, it’s the weapon that kills what lies beneath.”

He looks down at me, asking with slight humor, “You always think this much?”

“Sometimes.”

“I do too.”

I stop and turn to face him, and the wind kicks against us when I ask, “What about?”

“You, mostly.”

He drapes his arm around me, tucking me against his side as we look out over the water.

With his eyes cast out, he says, “I’ve always had a lost soul.”

We don’t look at each other as we speak, my arm now slung around his waist.

“Me too.”

“Sometimes when I see a little girl with red hair, for a split second, I feel hopeful that it’s you, but then I realize that you wouldn’t be that little girl anymore.”

“I used to sneak out of windows in the middle of the night when I went into foster care. You told me about Carnegie the last day we were together. I used to think that if I walked far enough to find a forest, you’d be there.”

My tears blend with the mist that collects on my face and trickles down my cheeks as we speak.

He turns to me, his hands running down my arms, and his eyes fill with years of inconsolable pain that I know too well.

“I am so sorry, princess. I have so many regrets in my life, but none bigger than losing you.”

I see his tears too.

“I was careless.”

“No, Dad.”

“I was. I should’ve never gotten involved with the people I worked for.”

I look into my father’s reddened eyes as blades nick my heartstrings.

“I will never be able to make up for all my wrongs, for leaving you fatherless, for causing you so much heartache,” he chokes out in shame.

“I don’t blame you, Dad.”

“You should.”

“But I don’t,” I tell him, and he pulls me into his loving arms that I’ve craved since I was five years old. “All I ever wanted was this. You holding me. I’ve needed your arms so badly,” I say, the words wrapping around my throat, making it hard to speak.

“I need you to listen to me,” he says insistently, and I look up at him. “I need you to know how much I love you. I need you to know that without you, my heart is incapable of ever being complete. You . . . you are the very fibers of my being.”

I rest my head against his chest and listen to his heartbeat as he continues, “I remember the day you were born. The nurse placed you in my arms, and I was forever changed. You softened my heart instantly, and I knew I would never be the same. I’ve never been so in love like I’ve been with you. I need you to never forget that.”

“I won’t.”

“Let me look at you,” he requests when he takes my face and cranes it up to him. He shakes his head, saying, “I just can’t believe how beautiful you are. My baby, you’re all grown up.”

Reaching my hand up, I run it along his jaw where his beard used to be. “I can’t believe I found you.”

“You did. And I will forever be thankful for that. To see you, and to know you’re okay.”

He leans down, pushes the hood of my raincoat back, and kisses the top of my head. His back shudders against my hands in sadness as he continues to plant kisses in my hair.

“You and I,” he eventually says. “We’re unbreakable even when we’ve been broken.”

“I’ve never let you die, even when I believed you were dead.”

We stand here, together in the misty rain, and we’re tear-stained souls who’ve finally united when the world has kept us apart for so long.

“I can’t believe I have you back,” I weep.

He wipes my face with his hands. “No more tears, okay?”

I nod and inhale deeply to soothe myself.

When he turns his head to look up where our cars are parked, he says, “That man up there . . . He’s a good one.”

I watch Declan, who’s talking on the phone, and smile. “He’s really good to me, Dad. I don’t deserve him.”

“You do. You deserve each other. I see how he looks at you, as if it’s the last time he’ll ever look at you.” He moves to stand in front of my view of Declan. “That’s the look of a man who’s desperately in love,” he says. “Even though I love you in a very different way, it’s the same way I look at you.”

His words comfort in ways I can’t explain, and I smile up at him.

“There’s that gorgeous light,” he adulates, and then kisses my forehead. “I love your smile.”

“I love you, Dad. So much.”

“I love you too, princess.”

When he looks at his watch, he groans. “I’ve gotta run.”

He takes my hand and leads me back up to the car, and when he opens my door, he leans down and looks to Declan, giving him a nod. Declan returns the gesture without any words spoken.

“Thanks, Dad,” I tell him. “I needed this.”

“I did too, sweetheart.”

He leans in and kisses my cheek, and I kiss his before he runs his hand down the length of my face.

“Drive safe, okay?”

“You too.”

“I will never love anyone the way I love you,” he tells me before he closes my door.

Declan then takes my hand and pulls it into his lap after we pull out of the parking lot and start heading back to the hotel. I reflect on the words my dad said to me, words I’ve been longing to hear, to know that I was never disposed of. To know that he’s hurt for me like I’ve hurt for him dissolves all resentment. And he’s right, even when we were apart, we were still together as one because neither of us let the other fade from our souls. No one can break us.

Walking through the door of our hotel room, a wave of unease hits me out of the blue.

We forgot to make plans to see each other again.

“Declan, did my dad say when he was coming back?”

He shrugs his jacket off and tosses it over a chair, saying, “No.”

I watch Declan as he moves aimlessly around the suite as worriment nags me.

“Declan?”

“Yeah,” he calls out when he wanders into the bedroom, and I follow him.

“Something doesn’t feel right.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s never not said when he’d be coming back.”

“Maybe he just forgot.”

“No. This doesn’t feel right to me.”

He runs his hands down my arms and scoops my hands up in his. “Darling . . .”

“Declan, something is wrong here, and I don’t trust it,” I say as a surge of fear takes over me. My hands start shaking. “Can you drive me by his house?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, but my gut is telling me that something is happening here that I don’t know about,” I tell him in a tremoring voice, panging in terror.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Either you take me or I’ll go on my own. You can’t stop me and you know it.”

“Elizabeth, no.”

“Why are you fighting me on this?”

“I just don’t think it’s safe,” he says, and I plead, “You promised me you would bend. I need you to bend.”

He releases a deep breath. “Okay.”

Declan grabs the keys, and I rush out the door.

He drives with a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel.

“Why are you so tense?”

He doesn’t speak, only reaches over to hold my hand, which does nothing for my anxiety. I stare at him as we pull into the neighborhood, and there’s a look in his eyes I’ve never seen before. My stomach holds the weight of a thousand pounds, and I want to scream at the top of my lungs to drive faster!

The moment he pulls onto Fairview, I see the sign.

I never knew the twist of fate that day held for me. But when I look back, I should’ve known. It was too much. Too much freedom. The words were too strong. The feelings were too intense. The truth was all around me, but I was too consumed with my dream come true to realize the evil nemesis that couldn’t just let me be. If I would’ve paid better attention, I would’ve said more to him. I would’ve made sure he knew every beat of my heart, the depths in which I’ve always loved him, and how utterly perfect I’ve always thought he was. He was selfish though, and I can’t blame him. Because looking back, I know he wanted to see my smile, pure and true, for one last time. There’s no way I could’ve given him that if I knew what was coming.